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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kathij" data-source="post: 3098995" data-attributes="member: 114344">Well I'm still going to have to argue against that... if there is an inherent bias within a society that results in the discrimination of certain groups then the setting up of regulations to try and combat such discrimination seems justified to me. Even if it does at times lead to more difficulties for those from the dominant group.To give two illustrations: In Northern Ireland the police force being under the control of the British government was throughout the troubles almost universally regarded as being at best heavily biased against Catholics and at worst to be actively colluding with Unionist paramilitaries. When the troubles died down the problem remained that despite no official restrictions being in place the percentage of people from the Catholic community in the police force was remarkably small and the police force was thus still regarded as being a hevily prejudiced and biased organisation. The solution was among other things to impose quotas for the hiring of people from the Catholic communities. Now from the POV your expressing Damien it would seem that such quotas are discriminatory because they would inevitably force the police force to hire more Catholics in order to iron out the inbalance. However, it really was a sensible solution and indeed as far as I can tell it seems to have worked quite well in that the police force is regarded with less suspicion than previously and indeed the percentages are evening out. If something was extremely discriminatory for a long period of time it makes sense that regulations trying to reverse the effects of such discrimination will be required. Imagine for instance if no quotas or requirements had been placed on the police force do you think anything would have changed or that the Catholic community would trust the police force to now start acting fairly?The second example comes from a book I read recently called blink in it there was a discussion of a study done in the 90's by a law professor in Chicago were he sent a variety of white men, white women, black men and black women to 242 car dealerships in Chicago. All dressed the same and were given the same background story (income, education) and were to follow the same script involving bargaining for 40 minutes. The result? Without fail the groups quoted the highest initial offer were black males being offered $1,687 above invoice, black women did slightly better with $1,195, white women $935 and lastly white men got initial offers of $725 above invoice. These are for the same cars, giving the same back story, doing the same bargaining and visiting the same dealerships. Even after bargaining the best price on average that black men were offered was £1,551 which is double the INITIAL offer given to white males. The point of the study however was not that car dealers are racist and sexist but that prejudice can be unconscious and automatic.There are many, many more examples that could be cited but those are just the first two of the top of my head and again I think that when you consider such examples you have to start thinking what is the realistic way to solve the issue? And I think personally that the first step will inevitably have to be putting in quotas and regulations that force companies/institutions to address imbalances. I do think this can be taken too far and I like everyone else know of many positive discrimination 'horror stories' but I really don't think these are enough reason to abandon the system since every good system will inevitably have horror stories of it being abused or overused.</blockquote>

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